Student's Inquiry Forces University To Alter Pay Plan

Following a complaint by a Law School student, the University changed its deferred monthly payment plan to comply with the Massachusetts truth-in-lending law.

A state agency last month found the revised plan, which clarifies guidelines for the $15 per semester service charge for those students choosing to pay their bills monthly, to be within the bounds of Massachusetts law.

James A. Sharaf '59, attorney in the Office of the General Counsel, said yesterday. "We asked for a ruling from the Massachusetts Banking Department and they said in effect that there can be a finance charge and what we are doing is proper."

No Charge

Ender the new guidelines no students who leave the University will be charged any amount for tuition, room board of health services beyond the sums they had been billed for by the time they left Harvard.

Any student who does not use the monthly payment plan may now pay charges other than tuition room board and the health services by the month without payment of any service charge.

Sharaf said the changes were "minor." He said the plan may not have been in violation of the state law even without the changes.

'In Theory'

Sharaf said the changes were made "in theory and not in practice because no students had been affected by the monthly payment plan before the amendments.

Allen Taylor, a third-year student at the Law School who brought up the original questions about the plan's legality, said last night that he has not followed the issue but that he assumes "Harvard is right" on the matter.